


Bitter pill

by JaqofSpades



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Case File, F/F, F/M, extreme liberties with canon, rape case investigation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 20:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8174966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaqofSpades/pseuds/JaqofSpades
Summary: There are suspicions, and there is evidence, and then there are those truths so bitter you can’t help but spit them out.  Veronica Mars goes undercover as a sorority girl, but this time Theta Zeta's secret has fangs.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Redrikki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/gifts).



Dress, check.  More makeup than she usually wore in a month, check.  Hair -  oops.  Could be smoother, or was it meant to flick like that?  The tutorial on You Tube had gushed over the cute factor, but Veronica is feeling a little out of her depth.  She’s going to have to hope that matching her purse to her shoes _and_ her dress will get her through the door. 

Veronica gives herself one last once-over in the mirror, practices her widest smile, then clutches the fire-engine red purse to her chest.  She can do this thing.  Slide out of her SUV like a lady, trip-trap her way up to their front door, knock delicately.  And – smile!

Her jaw already feels as if it’s going into rictus, and that’s purely from scowling at Mac all morning.  She’s probably still laughing, the cow, but at least she promised not to tell anyone.

Veronica Mars, sorority pledge.

Just kill her now.

*

Veronica fortifies herself with a deep breath, pastes on a smile, and sets her knuckles to the door. She has to be careful, she reminds herself.  This is the last place Parker remembers before things got fuzzy, her face twisting in confusion as she dredged up a memory of laughing sorority girls and no boys at all, and then … nothing.

“But they’re so nice,” she had protested, head shaking in disbelief.  “It couldn’t have been there!”

And maybe it wasn’t, but the roofies had to be coming from somewhere, and call her a fool, but nice isn’t that hard to pull off.  She manages it all the time, and it’s a long time since anyone dared accuse Neptune’s Least Wanted of being the slightest bit nice.

“Hello! Come in, come in! Oh my god, I love your outfit – doesn't that red just punch you in the eyeballs?” the girl who opens the door gushes, eyes shooting up and down, inspecting Veronica from the top of her head right down to her scarlet toenails.  “I’m Anya, and this is Dawn – she’ll take you through!”

Veronica is still blinking at the backhanded compliment when the next girl – a runway model type with mile-long legs and shiny brown hair falling straight to her butt - offers her hand to shake.

“Welcome.  I’m Dawn,” she says quietly, eyes smiling but somehow faraway, as if she’s looking straight into Veronica’s soul, trying to unlock all her secrets.  Her lips are parted slightly, eyebrows raised a little as if waiting for Veronica to let something slip … OH.

“Ah! Veronica.  Mars.  Is me,” she blurts, her mind racing as she chides herself for being so ridiculously fanciful.  Detective work is one thing – it could be her steady gaze, or that period-movie face, but jumping clear from there to wondering if the girl is actually reading her mind? Reality check, Veronica.

Dawn tilts her head a little as if querying her internal conversation, then surrenders to a smile. “Hey, Veronica.  Nice to meet you. I’ll introduce you to everyone in a minute, but first the sisters have got a little welcome planned. The boss insisted,” she says ruefully, nodding towards the group assembling on the stairs. At their head is a blonde woman who is only a couple of inches taller than Veronica herself, but everything about her makes it clear she's in charge.

Veronica studies her carefully as sisters and prospective pledges alike flutter around their leader like so many dazzled moths. She’s a few years older than most of the girls in the room, and while her face has the golden prettiness of your typical California poster girl, something about the way she holds herself is utterly commanding.  And that’s before she blows her little whistle, and the five girls lined up behind her start to sing.

They’re actually not awful, but the whole tableaux is so startling that Veronica takes a step back, then another.  A sofa seems to leap in behind her purely to block her escape, and she sinks down into it with a startled meep. 

“Drink?”

Veronica nods and is holding out her hand even before she gets a good look at the brunette in charge of the punch bowl.   She’s obviously one of the sorority sisters –  holding out cups, pouring the Kool-aid – but her black leather pants and dark red lipstick are a world away from the pastels everyone else is wearing.  Trashy, Veronica thinks, then winces.  She hates it when she sounds like Lilly.

On the other hand, Lilly would have had this in the bag.  “Got anything stronger?” Veronica tries, and gets a sly grin for her trouble. 

“Nah.  Against the rules.  But I find the further you get away from the singing, the less you crave intoxication.  I’m Faith, by the way.”

“Veronica.  Have you been a Theta Zeta long?”

“Yeah, a while now.  Not here though, I transferred from another campus last year.  UC Sunnydale.  A lot of us did.”

“Because the parties are so much more bitchin’ at Hearst?”

“Oh, we knew how to party already,” and holy cow, the way her tongue flicked to the centre of that dark red pout, was she –

Faith turns away and Veronica decides she has to have imagined it, because there was no way … though apparently there were all sorts of sororities, and some of the good ones actually had anti-discrimination policies, and … lesbians were welcomed, just like they should be. But still, for all Logan liked to make jokes about her butch boots and Veronica being the man in their relationship, surely …

“Jesus, pledge.  Don’t get your knickers in a twist.  You don’t have to sleep with me to pass the test,” Faith snorts, obviously more amused than anything else.

Which … is interesting in the context of things.  And yes, she is supposed to be investigating.  “I wasn’t …” but she totally was, and Faith clearly knew it.  “Sorry.”

“Don’t sweat it.  All types and that – which is good for me, because they’re allllll my type,” Faith croons, and Veronica can’t help herself.  She cracks up.

By the time she recovers herself Dawn is standing in front of her, the glamorous President at her side.   Veronica attempts to recover her sorority girl cool, and is almost miffed when it doesn’t matter. 

The President isn’t even looking at her, one perfectly groomed eyebrow cocked high as she interrogates Faith. “You two look like you’re having fun?”

“Buckets of the stuff, B.  You good?”

“Yup.  You?”

“Still don’t know why you wanted me here.”

“Because you’re a Theta Zeta, Faith,” the other woman lobs back, so sweet that Veronica can’t help but hear the warning.  Huh.  The scary blonde certainly has some sort of axe to grind, and wouldn’t she love to know what that could be.

Veronica makes a mental note to investigate that, then holds her hand out to shake.  “Veronica Mars.”

Buffy nearly blinds her with a dazzling smile. “Hi Veronica.  I’m Buffy.  Summers.  Welcome to Theta Zeta.  Love the dress.”

“Uh – thanks?  I wasn’t sure what you’d expect.”  Just enough honesty to sell it. “Retro goes anywhere, right?”

“With every occasion,” Buffy grins back.  “Even infiltrating a sorority to investigate a rape, right?”

Veronica gropes for a comeback, but barely manages to gape at the woman.  Dawn saves her.

“Is Parker alright?” she asks, tossing her hair in defiance of Buffy’s glare. “We’d heard and … we were worried.”

“But not worried enough to see she made it home safely?” Veronica snapped, and oops, cover blown.  If actually being undercover as yourself counted.  Maybe she could convince them it was all a coincidence.

“Well, when we heard her roommate was a friend of yours, and how you’re this legendary detective with a thirst for justice, yadda yadda yadda, we figured you’d be coming to check us out.  We just didn’t expect you …” Buffy waves her hand to encompass Veronica’s carefully assembled sorority-chic. 

“All Buffified,” Faith offers helpfully, her smile as saccharine as anything Veronica has ever served up.

Later, she’ll wonder how they’d heard of her, given she was barely two weeks into her first year at Hearst.  But she’s too used to being infamous to suspect _that_ , and they’re so keen to help, so full of  information, so _open_ about everything.

And then there was the evidence.

“Willow insisted,” Dawn mock glares at the excitable redhead who had handed her a bunch of statements, including a timeline for Parker’s time at the Theta Zeta house.

“It’s important, Dawn! A good time-and-motion study has cracked a lot of cases – I modelled mine on some of the best!”

“Criminology major?”

“Nah.  Computer science.  But figuring stuff out – kind of a hobby.”

One hell of a hobbyist, Veronica reels as Willow walks her through the three page flowchart.

“I tried to input all of the possible factors, but the more unlikely ones ended up the appendix.  If you see anything in there that you think is interesting, let me know and I’ll reflow to suit.  It’s easy enough to try a different model, if you’d prefer …,” Willow enthuses, and for a moment there, Veronica could have sworn her feet left the floor in the excitement.

She blinks and transfers her attention to the woman balancing a tray piled high with little snacks, smiling indulgently as she waits for Willow to finish speaking.

“Pig in a blanket?” she smiles, offering the tray to Veronica.  “They’re vegan and gluten-free.  I made them myself.”

“Tara’s a genius in the kitchen,” Willow grins, her eyes locking with the newcomer.  “Never met a spell she can’t master.”

Veronica wants to tell Willow she means a recipe, but then the flavour bursts over her tongue and she’s lost in bliss.  “Oh, God, these--”.

The girl actually blushes, swings a curtain of blond hair over her face and moves away to offer another prospective pledge a snack.  Only then does Veronica’s brain start working.

Could it be in the food?  Has she been dosed already, her grip on reality slipping away?  She glances around the room, and takes inventory of who she can see.  Willow, watching the blonde girl – Tara – move away, a goofy smile on her face.  Dawn, opening the door to fresh-faced girl in a dress even more obnoxiously vintage than the one Veronica is wearing.  Buffy and Faith, heads together in a corner, voices hushed but unmistakeably arguing.

Another knock, and three broad-shouldered bodies fill the doorframe.

It’s the immediate mulekick of suspicion that confirms Veronica is in full possession of her senses.  Every hair on her body bristles as she makes out  Chip Diller, Logan’s friend Mercer Hayes, and behind them, his bleached blonde locks steaming in the setting sun, Dick Casablancas.  Great.  As if this gig wasn’t sensitive enough without His Dickishness in the picture.

“Woah, dudes!  Let us in! The sun’s weird fierce,” she hears him yodel, and Dawn takes a step back.  Then another, looking to Buffy for guidance. 

“You two wanna stop arguing long enough to deal with this?” Dawn snaps, making Faith roll her eyes as Buffy pastes on a smile and fake-welcoming voice.

“These events are women only, boys.  You know that,” Buffy sighs.  “But if you want to come in … you can.  If you can.”

Mercer rolls his eyes as Chip moves to cross the threshold, then seems to bounce off an invisible barrier.  “Moron,” he hisses, then dangles something between his fingers.  “We were just returning this.  Thought you might need it.”

Buffy’s hand shoots out so quick the large silver cross is in her grip before Hayes thinks to move back.  “Thanks,” she says sweetly, then slams the door in his face.  “Idiots.”

“Do they come by often?”

“You mean, were they here Friday night? When Parker was?” Faith asks, echoing Veronica’s head tilt with one of her own.  “Yes, sister, they were.  And stupid us, we sent them away then too.”  She glares at Buffy over Veronica’s head, leaving neither of them in any doubt as to just how bad a decision she thought that was.

“What would you have done instead?”

“Taken them down into the basement.  Partied a little.  Maybe even swept up after,” Faith smirks and … that makes no sense.  Why would anyone want to spend time with any of those three sleazebags, suspected rapist or not?  Leave her alone in a room with them, and she and her taser would be having the party.  Veronica looks up to find Faith’s eyes on her, mouth twisting in silent amusement as if waiting for her to get it.

“Get what?” she wants to demand, but Buffy has dismissed Faith with a toss of her hair and is leading Veronica away from the door, and what Veronica’s suspects is Faith’s inconvenient honesty.

“A couple of the girls had lined up dates for after, and they turned up early, and they’d brought friends,” Buffy grimaced.  “We tried to keep ‘em in the garden – we’d heard rumours about the Pi Sigs – but it is possible someone snuck inside and doctored the punch.  But –“

“But?”

“No one seemed affected.  I mean, we didn’t have anything on hand for people to check their drinks, but … you can tell, usually?  My slayers have good instincts for that sort of thing,” she frowns.

“Slayers?”

Buffy’s bright smile is pure sunshine peeping through the clouds.  “Nickname.  ‘Cause they slay in everything they do.”

Veronica laughs, because she’d clearly been expected too, even if the whole thing had been a tad too rehearsed.  Slayers, huh.  Awful martial for a _sorority_.

There’s unease prickling at the back of her neck, signs of a truth hiding somewhere amid all the distracting lies.  All she has to is dig it out.

Good at everything they do – a secret room – that growl in Faith’s voice and the way her hands had curled into fists as she stared out at their unwanted visitors …

“What’s in the basement?”

Buffy stares down at her for a moment, then offers a thin smile.  “a gym and workout room.  Fitness is important, even for the sweetest of sorority girls.”

Veronica winces, knowing damn well she’s having her own preconceptions throw back at her. “and?”

“And we run self defence classes out of there.  Women need to be able to defend themselves, especially with dangerous idiots like that roaming the campus.”

“Dick isn’t dangerous, just stupid,” Veronica offer before a new interpretation of Faith’s words slams straight into her.

“Is that what Faith meant by ‘party’? Like - ”Veronica mimes punching with her fists.

Buffy’s lips twitch as she tucks Buffy’s thumb inside her fingers and nudges her feet into a different position.  “Probably not,” she shrugs, “given the way you fight.  I’ll put your name on the list.”

“Buffy!”

There’s an alarmed yell from the next room, the one Buffy hasn’t even made it to yet.  They race in together, only to find the patio doors wide open, and several girls grappling with Chip Diller outside.  Mercer Hayes is – no, he can’t be.  He’s kissing her, sucking on her neck, that’s all, wiping away the red wine from his mouth as one of her fellow would-be pledges crumples to the ground in spill of boneless limbs.

“They came in over the fence,” Dawn says as an aside to Buffy even as she raises her voice to be heard over the hubbub.  “Pledges, these gentlemen are uninvited guests.  That requires we shun them – come with me please.”

She makes an excellent mother hen, Veronica notes – maybe she should be President of the sorority, not her pricklier older sister.  But then – then –

She didn’t see it.  She was looking the other way mostly, trailing after Dawn just like she’d been told.  Buffy couldn’t have hurled herself at Chip Diller and landed a kick to his neck.  It wasn’t physically possible.  Faith didn’t storm past her, put her back to Buffy’s, then pull a set of pointed sticks from out of her leather pants.

“Mr Pointy?”

“Thank you, Faith.”

“Don’t mention it, Buff.  On three?”

“One, two …”

And Mercer Hayes most definitely didn’t just explode into rain of dust, his shocked words hanging in the air for long minutes after his body had dissolved underneath it. “But you’re just girls!”

“and you’re dust,” Buffy grins, while Faith rolls her eyes.  “Kiddie vamps need new material,” she snorts as they turn as one to the last, confused looking intruder. 

Dick Casablancas.

She went to school with Dick.  He couldn’t be … not that anyone could be, because people didn’t just turn to dust.  It had to be a trick, some sort of hazing thing.  But …

“Veronica?  Help me?”

If it really was, if it could be – was this actually even Dick?

“You know this guy?”

“Yeah.  We went to school together.”

“You know it’s not him anymore, right?  This is just –the thing that killed him.  Mercer, probably.  We think he started this nest.”

And Faith is using words like ‘killed’ and ‘nest’ and Veronica is terrified that soon, she’s going to hear something she’ll never be able to explain away, and hell no to that.  So she spins on her heel and walks away – possibly even runs – to the front door.  Pulls it open, and doesn’t even breathe until she’s sitting in her car, doors locked, shaking.

The knock on the door makes her shriek.  She unlocks, and Faith slides into the passenger seat beside her.  “Not ready to pledge Theta zeta just yet then?”

Veronica turns on her with mouth agape.  “Seriously?”

“We’re here for a reason, Veronica.  To help keep people safe.  Thought you might appreciate that.”

“There were –“  she slams her mouth shut around the word clamouring to get out.  If she doesn’t say it …

“V---“

Veronica flings her hand across Faith’s mouth, silencing her.  “Don’t you dare say it.”

Faith prises Veronica’s hand away from her mouth with impossibly strong fingers, then refuses to let go.  “So, since you plan on living in the land of denial …”

“What?”

“Here’s something else to deny.”

The kiss is long, and wet, and unimaginably sweet.  Veronica finds herself wanting to crawl straight into Faith’s lap, and she’s pretty sure it was her, not Faith who heaved that breathy little sigh when their lips finally agreed to part.

Her who slid even closer, tipping up her head once more, only for Faith to shift away.  “Don’t you have a boyfriend, or something?”

It’s a shower of cold water for someone who had sworn they would never, ever cheat.

“Uh I – God.  Yes.  Logan.”

“He’s a lucky guy.  Bye, Veronica.”

“Wait! What happened tonight?  To Parker?”

Faith sighs and shuts the car door once more.  “Easily digested version?  The Pi Sigs have a bit of a society within a society, and they’ve been using the mixers to target the loners, the out of town kids, the new freshmen.  They drug them, then … rape them, in a couple of different ways.”

The … blood loss.  Holes in the neck.  Holy shit.  Not thinking this.  Not asking a single question more.  “Like, some sort of initiation rite?”

“Nope.”

“But …”

“Nope.”

“But if they - why the roofies?”

Faith raises her eyebrows in silent question and Veronica just nods, miserable.  She hates this, her need to know.

“Some ... frat boys like to play with their prey, others like it all cuddly and compliant. Full of tasty endorphins.  Depends on who they are, and how high up the food chain they are.”

“There’s a food chain? Like – not just here?  Out there – in Neptune too?”

“In Neptune, in Sunnydale, in most of goddamn California.  Not as bad as it once was, but they are out there.  They’ve always been out there.”

This isn’t the end of this.  She knows that.  But right now – she can’t take anything more.  Can’t think with the shrieking inside of her head.  She needs …

“I’ve gotta go.”

“Yeah, sure.  For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“What happened to Dick?”

“He ran off.  Probably won’t see him except after dark from now on.  Be careful, Veronica.”

She nods mutely, brain screaming, and watches Faith swing back inside the Theta zeta house before she puts her car in drive.  She licks her lips all the way back into town, telling herself she’s still in shock, and definitely not chasing the taste of Faith underneath the waxy lipstick smeared all over her mouth.

*

She'd started out for home, but her guilty conscience pushes her in another direction until she finds herself parking outside the Neptune Grand, then making her way up to Logan's suite.  Her boyfriend is sprawled on the couch, eyes closed and philosophy textbook open across his chest.  She plucks it away to set it on the coffee table, then snuggles down.

“Veronica?”

“You were expecting your other girlfriend?” she quips.  Whoever said avoiding things wasn’t healthy needed their head read.  Today should probably be filed under ‘things Logan definitely doesn’t need to know’.

“That good, huh?” he grunts, and there’s a large hand between her shoulder blades, stroking away the tension.  Noooo.

“A girl kissed me today,” she blurts, and surely, that’s going to derail any real conversation.

“Huh, college.  Anything else to report?”

“Dick is a vampire.”

“Bleeding me dry for years,” Logan agrees, with a chuckle. “You learn to deal with it.”

You won’t have to, now, she wants to say, but can’t quite manage it.

“I saw something at the Theta Zeta house today and I’m trying to decide whether to report it.”

“Because?”

“I could be wrong?  I had to have been … imagining it.  Or drugged.  Maybe I was drugged again.”

Logan tugs gently on her hair, forcing her eyes up to meet his.  “Are you serious?”

“Maybe.  Don’t know.  But –“

“You don’t sound drugged.  Pupils normal – don’t look drugged.”

“Thanks, Sherlock.  But --“

“What did you see?”

She tries to tell him, she really does.  Tries to start with the stuff he already knows – Parker, the Theta Zeta house – but gets to the point where Chip knocked on the door, and starts telling him about Willow and Tara instead.

“So sweet, the way they looked at each other, it killed me.  And those little thingies – I’ve never tasted anything that good before.”

“Did you find anything about who drugged Parker?”

“Kinda.  Yes.  Need to look at the medical examiner’s report again to be sure, but, probably.”

“So that was it – you just need more evidence.  Then it’s over and you don’t have to think about it ever again,” Logan soothes, hand wandering lower on her back.

Veronica leaps up from the couch and drops a kiss on his forehead.  “Maybe.  But I gotta go.  Paper to write.  See you tomorrow?”

His “okay then,” trails her out the door, and Veronica’s halfway home before she allows herself to feel bad.   She nearly turns around when she remembers her Dad was in Arizona chasing a skip, and she’d be spending the night alone.

Thinking.

Figuring out what she needs to do.

Hours later, she’s still tossing back and forth in her bed, fending off the nightmares that come every time she tries to close her eyes.  Fine.  She’ll make a decision.

It makes no sense, but she can put a file together.  And as much as she’d rather fly into the frakking sun, she’ll go see Lamb.  Tell him what she saw, leave it with him.

He won’t believe her – he’s good at that – but at least she tried.  And she can stop thinking about this mess.  The huge truth lying in wait just beyond the edge of what she's willing to believe.

So this is what it feels like to be a coward, Veronica thinks as she drifts off to sleep.  Kinda comforting, hiding from the truth.  Maybe she should try it more often. Or maybe there will be a perfectly rational explanation for it all tomorrow, and she can go back to being Veronica Mars.

*

She parks outside the Sheriff’s office, every synapse in her brain screaming to leave it alone.  Argues with herself – you witnessed a murder! They’re obviously organised! People don’t get to evade justice just because you like them! – all of her points for the affirmative solid and undeniable, yet … she’s missing something, and she knows it.

Still she forces herself to grab the file, climb down from the car, make her way up the steps.

“Veronica Mars to see Sheriff Lamb, please.”

The new receptionist smirks at her as she calls up to Lamb, then nods at the door.  “Apparently you know your way.”

“So you’d think,” Veronica mutters to herself as she swings past.  He’s waiting for her, fingers already steepled in front of him, face mask-like with something that looks disturbingly like concern.

“Miss Mars.”

Veronica blinks at his serious tone, stalls in her tracks.  Had he already heard, perhaps? Had someone reported the Pi Sigs missing?  Explaining this case to an asshole like Lamb was going to kill her.

So she wouldn’t.  She’d just dump the folder on his desk, and run.  Let him do the legwork for a change.  But her goddamn mouth … “I saw something weird at a sorority party.  I tried to make sense of it, but …”  she stares at the wall, the way Mercer's body had just exploded in front of her replaying itself over and over.

“It makes no sense.  This is what I’ve got.”

He catches her at the carpark, in the shadow of a giant billboard.

“Mars.  Veronica.  There are things out there that don’t belong in a police report.  Some things – never make sense.  Never will.  So we leave those things to the people equipped to handle them.”

“What, like the FBI?  Are you saying you’re not going to investigate this?”

“Nor will the FBI, Veronica.  Or any police force that has – problems like this.  Ask your Dad.  He’ll tell you.  Drop the word ‘Slayer’ into a conversation and see what happens.”

Veronica’s breath catches in her throat, her heart threatening to slam its way through her chest.  It has to be – there’s no way – could her Dad have hidden this from her? Has she been surrounded by this her whole life, and just never knew? 

“Have a good day, Veronica.  Maybe you’ll listen to me now when I tell you not to be alone out there at night.”

His smile is wide and triumphant, not bothering to hide his glee in finally discovering a way to shut her up.  She turns away with a revolted hiss, but something makes her look back.

He’s making his way back inside, careful not to cross into the open sunlight.  She’s never seen him in the daylight, it occurs to her.  Not outside.

And something in her bones is screaming the truth, but she can’t.  Not yet.  Not on top of everything else.

But maybe one day she’ll run his name past the girls of Theta Zeta.  Not that she’s going back there anytime soon. She’s not sure she can handle seeing … anyone.  For more reasons than she's willing to examine right now.  Veronica Mars, big damn coward.

“Dad always said this was the job,” she murmurs to herself as she turns her keys in the ignition.  “Telling people stuff they might be better off not knowing."

She just - never expected to be people.

(Feels a lot like karma.)

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> My recipient requested Gen, so I must apologise for the touch of Veronica/Faith that blindsided me. And 'unreliable narrator' is a lot harder to write than I expected, so I do hope this is at least vaguely satisfying.


End file.
